~ Researching Russell Co, Kentucky

Category Archives: Surname: Dabelstein

My husband has been talking about potentially organizing a family reunion and I have been thinking about ways to show the family research that I’ve done without pulling out the traditional family group sheets and 5 gen charts. I thought I would try to create a type of tribute page for each family in his tree, almost in the style of an obituary. I highly recommend trying to write an obituary for your ancestors – it helped me to think through my ancestor’s life to see if I had additional areas to research and to help me make a research plan for other members of the family.

I plan to include maps to show the area each family is from as well as images that show interesting aspects of their lives. For example, Andrew Dabelstein was born and married in Germany, but was a bricklayer and hod carrier in Chicago after they came to the United States. I included an image showing bricklayers in the Chicago area during that era.

I have many ideas of items that I’d like to include, so this may turn into a pamphlet of
sorts, but I’m still playing with it. Here’s my first attempt at the front page of Andrew Dabelstein’s tribute. I’m also including the text for the obit/tribute that I wrote for Andrew in case another descendent visits the blog. If that’s the case, I’d love to hear from you!

Andrew J. Dabelstein

Hans Hinrich Detlev Dabelstein (1816-1891) was a day laborer in the tiny village of Nusse, Lubeck, about 15 miles from the Baltic Sea. In 1847, Hans married Maria Dorothea Niemann (1822-1896) and they started a family.

Jochim Andreas “Andrew” Dabelstein was the third child of Hinrich and Dorothea. He and his older siblings, Dorothea and Hinrich, would eventually welcome 2 additional siblings, Maria and Margaretha, to the family.

At the age of 26, Andrew married Sophia Catharina Christina “Alvina” Carstens in the city of Hamburg, Germany on Mar. 20, 1879. Alvina was the daughter of Johann Hinrich Carstens and Magdalena Margareta Voss.

Andrew and Alvina lived in Hamburg where Andrew was a laborer. They had their oldest child, Fritz Carl Hans Johann “John” Dabelstein on Dec. 27, 1880 in Hamburg.

On Apr. 19, 1882, “Andr”, “Christine” and “Fritz” left their families behind to began a two-week journey traveling in steerage from Hamburg to New York aboard the Wieland. By January, they had settled in Chicago where Andrew worked as a brick layer and hod carrier. Very soon, they expanded their family, eventually having 5 children: John, Martha, Minnie, William and Andrew.

Andrew and Alvina lived in Chicago for many years. Alvina passed away at the age of 54 on May 27, 1912. She died from heart failure due to overexertion. She was preceded in death by her son, John, who passed away in 1903 at the age of 22.

Andrew passed away at the age of 76 on Nov. 23, 1929 after living with his daughter Minnie Danker’s family for the final 2 years of his life.

After my family research trip to Chicago this week-end, I have most of the blanks in the Andrew Dabelstein group sheet filled in. I need 1 date of death for a son and confirmation of the marriage guess that I have made (and the parents of Andrew or his wife, Alvina Carsten). A combination of church records on microfilm from the Newberry Library and a visit to the cemetery helped fill in blanks or confirm educated guesses that I had made. Here’s what I have:

Henry “Andrew Jr.” Dabelstein – b. 26 July 1894 in Chicago. Possibly married to Emma Stolz on 26 July 1916. I have no date or location of death.

I would love to be able to fill in the final blanks for Andrew Jr and obviously, I’d like to find the next generation back. For the next generation, I think the next step will be to take a look at some Kayhude and Lubeck records, but I’m uncertain what is available and if I’ll be able to determine which church records to look at. There are some records for Lubeck on Ancestry, but everything is in Germany and the last time I was at the library, I was unprepared to do any translations. I don’t believe any of the records were church records. I know that AWAP is working on transcribing an index for Lubeck census records and I’m anxious to see those! Guess it’s time to visit the Family Search web site!

I’ve been doing research on my husband’s Dabelstein line as I prepare to go to Chicago to the Newberry Library and Concordia Cemetery. Wilhelmina Dabelstein was my husband’s great-grandmother. I know that she grew up in Chicago and I know her father was Andrew Dabelstein. I have the family group sheet filled out pretty completely except for the date of death for 1 brother. I decided to purchase a 1 month subscription to Footnote.com to see if the city directories could help me out.

When looking at the Chicago directories, I realized that Dabelstein was a pretty rare name in Chicago, which made me begin to wonder if the families that were listed could be related. Almost all of the Dabelstein men were bricklayers or masons, so it seemed likely that they could be related. I also found an “old German file” from the FBI on one of the Dabelstein names (a lawyer, not a bricklayer) that made me even more curious!

I began to build an Excel file with all of the information I could find on the families. Because I had been concentrating on the Chicago city directories, that information was stuck in my mind, so that’s where I started. I began to build my Excel file with each person listed along with their address from each directory. My goal was to be able to separate the families based on addresses because there were some duplicate first names. After assembling the information from directories for 1884 – 1916, I had a vague idea of who belonged to each family, but I wasn’t certain, so I decided to add census information from Ancestry. This helped me to be more certain of my breakdown and even made me realize that 1 person was listed under 2 different names (August and Gustav) – sometimes in the same directory.

Then, I realized (hand smack on forehead) that if I could find the birthplace for the different heads of each family, I could be pretty sure they were related in SOME way. I had found the birthplace of Wilhelmina’s father by finding the birth certificates for her siblings on pilot.familysearch.com, so I thought I’d see if I could find birth certificates for the other family and was thrilled to find one that confirmed the same village for Frank Dabelstein! He was 10 years older than Andrew, so he could be a brother or a cousin.­­­ There was a 3rd family – a mother and 2 children – all born in Germany. The 2 children were never married, so I’m not sure how to find a birthplace for them yet, but the ages and date of immigration do not appear to fit with my family but I’ll try to keep an open mind there.

Since I have this connection, I’m going to continue collecting all information possible in this Excel name study to see what potential information I can find on Andrew through Frank. My next step will be to look for immigration information for Frank.

I have a LOT of family group sheets. But until about a year ago, I had never seen family group sheets with footnotes! What a wonderful idea! I’m always wondering where a certain piece of information came from, but I don’t always have my software with me. So I’ve been working diligently to update my group sheets to have footnotes.

I have a group sheet for Andrew Dabestein and Alvina Carsten – my husband’s great-great grandparents. On this group sheet, I have 6 children listed, complete with dates of birth and dates of death and burial locations. The only problem is that I have 1 sibling that I cannot find a SINGLE source for! He is not listed in my genealogy software or on my tree in Ancestry. He only exists on my group sheet.

I have Hans Dabelstein b. 27 Dec. 1881, d. 6 Mar. 1903 buried in Concordia Cemetery (where most of the family is buried) in Chicago. He would be the 2nd child out of 6. I have no idea where this information came from.

He is not in a single family census record – perhaps because of the missing 1890 census records. In the 1910 census, it says that Alvina had 5 children and 4 were still living. If Hans really belongs to this family, she would have had 6 children by 1910.

If the date of birth is correct, he would have immigrated with his family in 1883, but I only find a record for his parents and older brother. Where did the date of birth come from? It’s pretty specific! I have found the Cook County birth certificates for the younger 4 children. But if Hans was born in 1881, he would have been born in Germany, so no help there.

I can confirm the date of death in the online Illinois Death Index, but that in no way connects him to this family. And how do I know he’s buried in Concordia? None of this family is listed in Find-a-grave. He is not listed (that I can find) when I explore the death certificates available at the Cook County Genealogy Web site.